Expansionism

Here is a very simple and tiny mod that encourages all leaders to expand more (build/conquer more cities).


A gameplay suggestion to make a good use of it.
Create a small pangea map, only military victory, no city state, 10 to 12 civilizations (instead of 6, to add pressure and compensate for the city states).

• Without this mod the civs tend to expand very slowly and to not compete a lot, the map only being 50% full on 1000 A.D. despite those crazy settings.
• With this mod however wars will be raging from all sides at year 0 A.D and every civ will have twice more cities by that time with a map at 75% filled.
• Perfect to enjoy many city sieges in the early game. A wet dream for Roma and Assyria with their powerful ancient siege units.

How to increase the expansionism flavor even more?
Edit the .sql file in the notepad and change "flavor + 3" with the number of your choice. All flavors are ranged between 0 and 10 and the expansion flavor is usually between 5 to 10 depending on the leader.


Compatibility

• Should work with or without expansions, with or without any DLC.
• Should be compatible with all mods but there is a potential loading order problem if other mods add or modify new leaders: in such a case Expansionism should be loaded only after all those other mods have been.
  • To enforce the loading order, I need to manually reference every mod.
  • To check whether your mod is properly referenced or add a new one yourself please follow this guide.
  • I will add those new names/ID as you provide them to me.
  • Without that there will be a 50% chance that new civilizations are not modified.

Note
Provided as is, only tested in a single game.

Reserved.

Is this mod going to be on the steam workshop?

DonQuiche said:

A wet dream for Roma and Assyria with their powerful ancient siege units.

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You sure know how to sell your products. Good to see you're still following new leads for Civ5, I feared you lacked time lately.

@liltrogdor
Not for now since it would mean to create an image, write another page, answer many "how to play mod" questions and deal with plenty of false bug reports. I do not want to waste time for that and the Steam community saddens me. Generally speaking the mod is provided "as is".


@Hyronymus
I only played my first BNW game on Friday night, stopped at year 1k out of frustration because the other civs never expanded. The day after I created this mod in a couple of minutes (one SQL line to write is trivial, the longer part was to inspect the game files to get a superficial understanding of the AI) and started another one that I stopped at year 500

The first game made me remembered why I got sick of civ5. The second one, though, would have been the most enjoyable I ever experienced if only I had chosen a higher difficulty level.

Yet, civ5 is mostly over for me. I actually lack time for video games in general this year.

DonQuiche said:

The first game made me remembered why I got sick of civ5. The second one, though, would have been the most enjoyable I ever experienced if only I had chosen a higher difficulty level.

Yet, civ5 is mostly over for me. I actually lack time for video games in general this year.

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From lack of time or lack of interest? Anyway, thanks for all the work you've done for the community all these years!

stackpointer said:

From lack of time or lack of interest? Anyway, thanks for all the work you've done for the community all these years!

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Both. My interest for civ5 is almost void today, and my interest for video games has faded too, although there are titles I would like to player.

But on the other hand this is a sunny Sunday and I am working at home, as I did almost every day this year. This may sound crazy but one has to gather the fruits while they hang and I certainly would not pass on such fruits.

I tried Expansionism mod, it makes the AI more aggressive even on lower difficulty. thank you so much, I love it. I tested it on small Pangea with 12 civs no city states and there's been lots of wars where people actually take cities. Your mod surprisingly mad a run away Venice, and Venice kept wonder hoarding. I tested this on Warlord diff. Oh I forgot to tell you this mod is the first one I ever installed manually lol I figured it out though.

@DonQuiche: I do appreciate your efforts and mods. I do think that you are perhaps a bit hasty in your overall assessment of BNW as a failure. True, the early game can be less exciting, but I have seen the AI get real aggressive against neighbors who are less well armed. A lot depends on the AI's personality for that particular leader. Some are just too passive. But by late game, things do tend to pick up and civs tend to take up more and more space. I'm sure there is a lot of tweaking that needs to be done. I myself am not a warmonger nor do particularly enjoy fending off AI's who are, but I may try your Expansionism mod to give it a fair shake. I play huge TSL world maps on King and that is a slow haul, I tell you. Even so, as Venice I've had Rome turn on me in the Classical era and wiped me out because I was too busy building wonders - which is what probably set him off, I'd guess.
I do empathize with the "tired of video games" sort of vibe...I'm 65 and there is obviously much more to a normal life than just playing these games. But for me they remain a viable diversion from the bigger issues that impinge upon my peace of mind. Hope you hang in there and keep on modding... Take a break if that's what you need and don't let them get you down.

Thx gunnergoz for referring me to this mod.

I am starting a game right now with theese settings:

Large Map, Earth.
10City States, 22Civs, Emperor, Random Personalities, Disable Start Bias.

Will report as I play...

@Liltrogdor
Thank you for the feedback, I am glad you liked it.

@Gunnergoz
What I said certainly was not a critic of BNW, I think I never expressed opinions on the content of BNW itself. I just said this game on Friday was not the game I expected, which is a fact, which does not mean that it could not have had value of its own. Just not what I wanted.

Regarding the fact that I am tired of civ5, even the finest meals can turn your appetite on the long run and after 500 hours of civ5 (among which about 400 spent modding), it's no wonder that I got tired of it. And the time the civ5 bugs wasted for me certainly did not help, so let me evacuate that pressure and don't pay too much attention.


Finally regarding the relative tiredness about video games in general, well, I think you indeed figure out what I mean. I am kinda the old geezer (figuratively speaking, I am still too young for that) rumbling about how in my time we didn't need assisted targeting or yellow exclamation marks, and one could use a mouse to properly play games that are today designed for big fingers and clumsy gamepads with a straight and closed content tailored by marketing guys.

DonQuiche, does this make AI more aggressive for the right reasons? I also combined this will Falcon AI Mod (makes AI do things sensibly)...wonder how your thing will CONFLICT...if at all

@CtJackHarkness
This mod only increases their desire for land, so then they covet their neighbors' territory more, which hampers their relationships and increases their aggressively towards each other. Everything is right here.

Regarding FalconAI, there is no possible conflict. Expansionism increases the expansionism flavor for every leader, Falcon AI voids their hate for warmongerers and willingness to denounce. Three different numbers. Both mods are very simple and straightforward.

As I said before, the only possible conflicts would be with mods adding or replacing leaders, if they were started after Expansionism. In such a case they would not be made more expansionist.

I did try the Expansionism mod on a standard pangea map on King as Zulu with mostly African or N. African neighbors and as of 150AD, still no wars or overt aggression against me, even though I did place a city 4 hexes from Ashurbanipal's latest city, denying him Lake Victoria. 20 turns later, not a peep out of him. My army consisted of one warrior, one archer and one spear, and one scout. By the time I'd settled that, we were starting to run out of space unless someone sent a settler off by sea to another part of the pangea.

I do think that the BNW changes have done something significant, but I'm no genius at sniffing out just what it is; I just have no talent for reading these files: tinkering with the AI seems to have little effect that I can tell, so far - but one game with the mod is not a fair trial, so I will keep at it.

@gunnergoz
There is no reason for this mod to push Ashurbanipal to attack you for that land.
* He wants land, not *this* land.
* He wants land and there is free one.
* The mod does make leaders more expansionist, which creates more casus bellis, but it does not make leaders more aggressive on their own.

OK, got that. So it is part of the solution that I think the community needs to work on to get the BNW AI into balance, but not the entire package. A very good start so thanks for that.

DonQuiche said:

@CtJackHarkness
This mod only increases their desire for land, so then they covet their neighbors' territory more, which hampers their relationships and increases their aggressively towards each other. Everything is right here.

Regarding FalconAI, there is no possible conflict. Expansionism increases the expansionism flavor for every leader, Falcon AI voids their hate for warmongerers and willingness to denounce. Three different numbers. Both mods are very simple and straightforward.

As I said before, the only possible conflicts would be with mods adding or replacing leaders, if they were started after Expansionism. In such a case they would not be made more expansionist.

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Seems like I need this AI mod lulz, in the game I started after some chain denouncing against me its me against the world now.
The AI doesn't seem to be so keen about attacking each other tho. They sure as hell hate me. I have civs that I don't even know where they are, coming for me from the woodwork.

@Gunnergoz
Oh I certainly did not intend to do an AI overhaul. This is just a one-line mod (literally) that increases the fun in some circumstances, nothing more, nothing less. Besides everyone has a different opinion regarding what is balanced and what an AI must compels to.

Every step towards a more balanced and clever AI is a good one so I for one am appreciative. I know zip about programming or how the nuts and bolts of the game AI work, but I play with your mod on all the time now.

This mod + FalconAI has increased my enjoyment of the game immensely.